correct scale animals 28mm

[Alan maguire]

hi, i want to sculpt animals for 28mm scale. im confident i can do it its just getting the animals correct with regards to proportions/scale etc etc...

Im having trouble with this and would appreciate any help in how to do this or if anybody has any pictures already scaled and ready to print.

Thank you!

[Vermis]

Decide on a specific scale (1/56 or whatever), find an average measurement of the RL animal, and use one to reduce the other. (Length is usually determined by stretching a dead or unconscious specimen out, IIRC, so it might not quite match a live, naturally posed animal as much as height to the shoulder or somesuch) Use the measuring tool on gimp or your photo editor of choice to make sure your reference pic of a neutrally-posed animal or skeleton will print out at the correct, scaled size. Use the printout to make sure your armature is correctly proportioned.

'Least, that's how I did it, as instructed by Ebob.

And make sure you know that quadruped shoulders are different and digitigrade legs don't have 'backwards knees'.  

[Alan maguire]

@ Vermis

god info thanks! i've bookmarked ebobs page ...

[Major_Gilbear]

Back from my computer game modding days (I was primarily a voxel artist), a good few of us used to make "boxes" to contain digital models which we then sculpted inside of. This allowed up to maintain the correct size and profile of units easily through a quick visual line-up-and-check.

I wonder if getting some pictures from different angles of an animal in the pose you want can be used in the same way? With the pictures scaled to size and arranged inside a 3-sided box (x, y, z axis), you can then hold the model you're sculpting up to the box as you go to ensure that the proportions and position are about right.

It won't "teach" you anatomy in a proper sense, but you will get better at observing and copying - I found that I was able to get nearly perfect silhouettes for the scale just by eye from a few random photos of the subject after some practice using this method.

...Might be worth a go?

[Vermis]

Ebob's not only one of the best horse sculptors, but also one of the best horse (and other animal) sculpting tutors, even though most of his material is simple photo step-by-steps. Take a look at his main page and click on 'green room' at the top.

Major Gilbear's advice sounds good to me, too, and I think enclosing the various planes or views within proportioned boxes is interesting; though personally, I've had trouble finding different views of animals in just the same pose. In the personal example that springs to mind, a couple of sculpts of onagers (arabian wild asses): I printed out scaled pics of the poses I wanted, to get the size and pose of the armature right, then printed the same pics larger, as part of a pageful of reference pics. On photo paper, too; it might not be strictly necessary, but along with the larger size, it made the pics a bit clearer to see. Some were flipped to get good views of the 'other side' too. (Close to Gilbear's suggestion maybe, though the simple mirroring of pose rather than a true alternate viewpoint might knock it down a notch)

Good point about observation too: anatomy diagrams are useful, but personally I've sometimes had trouble resolving them with the actual figure, human or animal, with layers of fat, skin and hair laid over those previously starkly-delineated muscles. A bit of a look at both might be needed. Also, again coming close to Gilbear's method, I found it useful to hold the sculpts in front of the ref pics and line them up.

Talking about staying within the planes of animal figures reminds me of an interesting technique, borrowed by the 1listsculpting yahoogroup from a Russian modelling forum. You can find the first "Sculpting Horses" chapter (with English translations; though the pictures paint a thousand words) here. There are four chapters in all.

Lastly, there are a couple of other links and book suggestions here. (I really should get round to adding that horse sculpting stuff to it...)

[Connectamabob]

One handy thing is that with mammals at least they all share the same anatomical "floorplan" (same bones, same muscles), just with different proportions. A bear and an antelope have mostly the same bones and muscles as a human (cats are used for dissection in pre-med classes because they're highly similar even in their viscera). Stuff's stretched out here and flattened there and beefed up in this area, but it's still the same structures. So just studying human anatomy in detail will actually give you a huge leg up in being able to deconstruct animals from photos. Again, with mammals, at least.

[Alan maguire]

Thanks for the info and tips and advice,

Intresting idea Major! not heard of that before and will give it a go.

I checked out ebob's method and looking straight forward , theres a russian man who uses the same method for his horses and has sculpted some amazing horses.

Thanks vermis! 

[Alan maguire]

@ Connectamabob

Yeah i get that , i've scaled down a human and he measured 29mm to the eye so useing him as a guide, finding pics of animals with people in the same pic and trying that .